


now you're the future

by depthsofgreen



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, First Time, Future Fic, Hand Jobs, M/M, Rimming, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:50:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9854672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depthsofgreen/pseuds/depthsofgreen
Summary: Years in the future, The Batman stalks Gotham, and Oswald Cobblepot struggles to repair his relationship to the man he loved once.





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a future where Ed and Oswald's post-3x14 antagonism has been resolved, but very, very shakily so.

The Penguin sits alone on the uppermost level of The Iceberg Lounge. Draped in charcoal-black shadow, he watches the dancing, gambling, eating mass of bodies below. He takes an absent sip from the glass clutched tight in his palm as his gaze lingers on a figure standing lonesome by the bar, hands empty and feet fidgeting. Oswald leans forward, just slightly, the pale blue neon light emanating from the crystal walls beneath him illuminating his face to the crowd below (not that many dared look up, not with the whispered stories of lives left in ruins after accidental eye contact with The Penguin was interpreted as an affront).

Spotting a glisten of sweat atop the fidgeting man’s brow even from this distance, Oswald sighs and stands, draining what’s left of his glass and setting it down, the cool handle of his cane replacing the weight of it in his hand. He heads downstairs, opting for the elevator when his leg seizes with the effort of movement, and limps over to where Zsasz is leaning casually against a wall, hungry eyes scanning the crowd.

“Victor,” Oswald says, announcing himself. “How would you like to take care of that skittish fellow lurking by the bar?”

Zsasz tilts toward Oswald for just a moment before looking over to the bar, the tally-scarred skin around his neck pulled tight.

“Sweating dude in the ponytail?”

“The very same. He’s striking me as a troublemaker, and not the profitable kind.”

“The kind that brings The Bat a-flyin’.”

Oswald nods and turns on his good heel to head back upstairs before Zsasz has stopped smiling at him long enough to begin stalking his commanded prey.

Oswald’s struggling pace is stopped momentarily in its tracks when one of his cocktail waiters catches his eye, brow quirking upward, near-imperceptible but dripping with suggestion. He’s one of Oswald’s longest-running workers here, clumsy with the customer base but graceful beneath Oswald’s hands and mouth. Oswald considers him for a moment and tilts his head up in affirmation, willing himself to focus on his bronze skin and high cheekbones rather than the idiotically grateful smile that lifts his lips.

The elevator ride upstairs to Oswald’s office is blissfully silent, and Oswald makes another mental note about this one: not insist on foolish, nervous chatter. Check.

Oswald’s idly debating what physical activities he has the remaining energy for when he spots a tall figure clad in green standing at his office door, a gilded cane with a question-mark-shaped handle resting on the wall by his side.

“Edward,” Oswald announces flatly, tone betraying not a _whisper_ of the sudden tightness in his chest. “I didn’t see you come in. Nor, apparently, did any of my incompetent staff.”

“Hello, Oswald,” Ed smiles, wide and vaguely sinister in that way he’s always had. “It’s been too long.”

“Hm, yes, well, that’s hardly surprising given you’ve gone _straight_. ‘The Riddler Reformed,’ the papers say. Working with The Bat and all.”

“I was hoping for some privacy --”

“Of course,” Oswald unlocks his office door, holding it open as he turns to the waiter and waves him away, half-heartedly apologetic.

Oswald sighs and enters his office, moodily lit just as he likes it, door clicking shut behind him as he watches Ed flip through a stack of papers on his desk with interest.

“That one waited on my table last time I was here,” Ed remarks without looking up, thumbing through the sheets before him with purple gloves. “Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but. I suppose he must have _some_ strengths for you to keep him around.”

Ed looks up, that same maddening smile on his face. Oswald feels his cheeks go hot, quickly moving toward his desk and smacking Ed’s hands away.

“What do you want, Ed?” Oswald asks, dropping down into his chair. He feels very tired, suddenly. “I can’t imagine you have anything pleasant to share with me, given your new...social circle.”

“I’m not here investigating you, if that’s what you’re implying,” Ed’s smile drops as he moves to sit atop Oswald’s desk, sliding closer to him.

Oswald hates him blindingly for a flashing second for how damn _comfortable_ he is, ass on Oswald’s desk as if The Penguin isn’t among the most dangerous men in Gotham City. As if the throngs outside don’t fear so much as making _eye contact_ with him.

“That’s lucky for you,” Oswald spits, eyes blazing. “You know I’d put you down without a second thought if you dared threaten me.”

Ed swallows, and Oswald delights at the worried line that forms on his brow. _He’s scared_ , he thinks. _Good. He should be._

“It might be true that I’m on the side of the angels for now, but I have no intention of betraying my own,” Ed’s face has softened, voice low and earnest in that way it always used to be, before gunshots and love and revenge came between them.

Something in Oswald softens, too, though he’s careful to do nothing to reveal it.

“ _The side of the angels_ ,” Oswald laughs, a bitter sound. “You.”

“ _You_ went legitimate, didn’t you? You’ve always been a source of inspiration for me.”

“Pfft,” Oswald snorts, but there’s no real bite to it. “I didn’t go _that_ legitimate.”

“No,” Ed agrees. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Ah,” Oswald smiles, cold again. “So you _are_ here on your new buddy’s behalf.”

“I’m _here_ on my own behalf. To warn you,” Ed’s voice has gone serious again.

“Go on.”

“Batman _knows_ you’re involved with Harvey Dent’s disappearance.”

“He can’t prove that.”

“No,” Ed says, voice fond, and Oswald _hates_ the pleased pull in his stomach. “But he has a personal investment in this one, and he’s still smarting from your temporarily blinding him a few weeks back.”

“That was an accident,” Oswald protests with a wave of his hand. “He was sticking that fearsome cowl of his where it didn’t be--”

“Be that as it may,” Ed interrupts, “He’s angry, and he’s got his sights set on you.”

“And what are you suggesting I do about that?”

“I don’t know,” Ed admits. “Give Dent up, ideally, or go into hiding for a few weeks for the very least while this all blows over--”

“Give Dent _up_? Go into _hiding_? Just a few weeks running favors for the GCPD and already you’ve managed to match their collective idiocy, if not _surpass_ it,” Oswald’s seething, watching Ed’s mouth thin in a way that would terrify most other living men.

“Oswald--”

“ _Edward_ ,” Oswald hisses, mocking. “I have a reputation to maintain. This city is fickle as fickle gets. Attempting either of the ingenious options you’ve just presented would knock me right back to the bottom and force me to claw my way up from scratch. _Again_. And those days are behind me. Let The Bat come. I can handle him.”

“But --” Ed stops himself. Exhales. “He wants blood, Oswald.”

“There’s a city of people out there who want my blood,” Oswald’s voice is barely more than a whisper. “They all end up disappointed. _You_ know that better than anyone.”

Ed’s face pales at that, and Oswald can’t help the sick twist of satisfaction in his stomach, ugly and bitter.

“Your _blood_ I got,” Ed says finally, after several sustained moments of silence. His voice is rough, hands twisting in his lap.

“Yes,” Oswald concedes. “But you got little else.”

A lie, of course. They both know that. Oswald’s death at the hands of the man he loved may not have been the literal one Ed intended, but he’s lived like a ghost nonetheless ever since, aching and empty and brimming with heartsick rage.

Ed looks down at his hands, eyes distant like he’s measuring a response.

Oswald decides he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s tired enough.

“If that’s all, Ed,” Oswald says pointedly, “I should be retiring for the night soon. I have had a trying day, to say the absolute least, and if I’m to contend with this _bloodthirsty angel_ of yours I should really get some rest first.”

“Okay,” Ed laughs, quiet and slightly put-out. He gets up off the desk, picking his cane up. Oswald eyes it with some amusement despite himself.

“I like this, by the way. Is that new? You do know some of us need those to _walk_.”

“I need it for other things,” Ed smiles, twirling it in the palm of his hand. Ever the showoff.

Oswald moves to stand, but is stopped by a hand to his shoulder. He looks down, surprised. He can’t remember the last time Ed touched him.

“I can see myself out,” Ed assures him, squeezing gently before making his way to the door.

“Good night, Ed,” Oswald calls after him. “I do -- appreciate...the warning.”

Ed turns and smiles by way of response, lips tight.

“Oh,” he says suddenly, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. “I’m going to be calling upon that waiter of yours to make me a drink, so don’t get any ideas about trying to get him back up here.”

Oswald laughs at that, incredulous, but Ed is gone before he can respond, door clicking quietly shut behind him.

***

The Bat turns out to be something of a non-issue this time around. The Riddler makes his triumphant return, to the simultaneous horror and delight of the papers (and the surprise of exactly no one). In the time it takes The Bat and the GCPD to work through the extensive puzzles he littered across the city, Dent has arisen, seemingly from the dead, a new name and gimmick garnering him headline space to rival The Riddler’s own.

Barely a week has passed before Oswald opens his office to find Ed sitting on his desk, long legs stretched across it. He’s re-donned the old purple domino mask he sported before his reform, his grin upon Oswald’s entrance huge and toothy. Its moments like this that make Oswald wonder why Ed isn’t the rogue known for his smile.

“Well, well,” Oswald says by way of greeting, “Looks like The Ridder’s detective days are behind him. Who would have thought.”

“Hello to you too, Oswald,” Ed’s grin widens.

“How did The Bat take your _shocking_ betrayal?” Oswald takes a few steps closer to his desk, leaning on his cane.

“He cracked three ribs.”

“Ah,” Oswald replies, wrinkling his nose in sympathy. “Been there.”

“Not recently though,” Ed smiles, soft and close-lipped.

“I suppose I should thank you for that,” Oswald inches closer, hips pressed against desk’s edge, eyeing Ed carefully. “Tell me -- this explosive comeback of yours. Did your compulsions simply get the better of you again or --”

Oswald pauses. Ed cocks his head at him curiously, eyes unreadable.

“Or,” Oswald repeats, swallowing his hesitance. “Did you do it to get The Bat’s _sights_ off of me?”

“Hmmmmm,” Ed brings a gloved hand up to stroke his own chin, play-thoughtful. “What does the evidence suggest?”

“I can’t always trust _the evidence_ with you.”

Ed’s smile falters at that, hand dropping from his face.

“If it’s a _game_ you’re after,” Oswald continues, gripping his cane tighter, “You’re better off sticking with The Bat.”

“It’s not a game,” Ed says, defensive. “I did it to distract Batman, yes. I was worried about you.”

Oswald shifts his feet at that, ears warming. Something that feels perilously like guilt floods through him, which is patently _ridiculous_. It’s not as if he doesn’t have reason to distrust Ed’s attentions.

“Well,” Oswald says finally, eyes darting to the floor. “Thank you. Though I maintain I could have handled it.”

“That I never doubted.”

“Hm,” Oswald huffs, looking back up at Ed, skeptical. The air between them is lighter, though, lighter than it’s been in years. “Eleven-foot puzzle boxes across the city, though, Ed, _really_ \--”

“It took Batman sixteen hours to work out the first. Just the _first_ ,” Ed’s chest swells, face giddy. “I think my old friends at the GCPD gave up entirely.”

“Christ, Ed,” Oswald snorts. “Sometimes I think I was lucky to escape your vengeance with just a bullet in my torso.”

Ed’s eyes widen, mouth dropping open. The matter of that bullet is so often mere subtext to their conversations these days. It feels liberating, somehow, to wrestle it away from the obscuring grip of passive-aggression and innuendo.

Ed’s face is coloring, dark eyes bright, and Oswald is bracing himself for an outburst, an attack, or, God help him, a fucking riddle.

But Ed _laughs_. Full-throated, eyes squeezed shut, hand over his mouth. Doubled over, almost, and _that_ must hurt, assuming Ed wasn’t bluffing about the cracked ribs earlier.

Oswald’s grip on his cane loosens, startled by the sound and sight. He isn’t sure he’s ever seen Ed laugh this openly or vulnerably, not even when they lived together. Not even when he Ed still loved him (and he _did_ , once, Oswald knows he did, however much he tried to deny it on that dock).

When Ed looks up at him, shoulders shaking with laughter and tears forming in the corners of his eyes, Oswald can’t help it.

He laughs, too, chest warm and cheeks aching, something in him lit anew.

He’ll worry about what that means later, he decides.

***

And worry he does.

He’s happy - giddily so. Stupidly so. _Dangerously_ so.

Ed’s visits to The Iceberg Lounge to see Oswald are increasing in frequency, at least a couple times a week. Often he walks into Oswald’s office under the guise of business, some loose end he needs taken care of, or a new rogue sending shockwaves through the city to discuss. Just as often, though, he doesn’t, waiting at Oswald’s desk with a bottle of wine in hand or a new puzzle he’s working on.

People are starting to notice, of course. It’s been ages since he accepted offers of sex from any of his waiters, and he can only imagine the things they’re saying, rumors they’re spreading. Thinking about it makes his throat close up in a way only irresponsible amounts of alcohol can contain.

It’d be bad enough if it were anyone. It being Edward Nygma, The goddamn Riddler, the man who went from being The Penguin’s mayoral chief of staff to a foe who shot and left him for dead after ripping his empire apart...Well. That’s _worse_ , weak and downright _foolish_ , and he can only imagine how many beady-eyed morons are watching from the sidelines, plotting a strike.

He’s getting paranoid. Lashing out. Just last week he snapped when some goon merely mentioned The Riddler, shooting him through the kneecap, eyes wild and mouth clenched in fury. He _had_ gotten better, over the years, at tempering these flare-ups of rage, mastered the art of sitting still and reacting through quieter means weeks, sometimes even months, later.

And yet. Just a few weeks of renewed, rocky friendship with Edward Nygma and he’s regressed back to _this_ , this wild, impulse-driven thing. Pathetic. Stupid. _People are starting to notice._

Oswald runs shaky hands down his face as he stands before his bedroom mirror in his briefs, purple-rimmed eyes fixed on the bullet scar on his torso, blindingly white-pink, skin puckered up. He strokes a finger round the rim of it, sensation dulled from scar tissue.

 _This is what happened the last time you let this man in_ , Oswald reminds himself, finger worrying at the scar as he mentally repeats it, again and again: _This is what happened the last time you let this man in._

He knows, deep down, he needs to tap into that frightening self-respect he’s come to be known for and end this.

***

All resolutions Oswald makes to cut off contact dissolve, however, when he opens his office door to find Ed, _always_ on his desk, sometimes pawing through Oswald’s things, other times fidgeting with whatever absurd contraption he’d be tormenting The Bat with next. Always, regrettably, _adorable_.

He walks in today to find Ed sitting, legs spread with a corked-open bottle of merlot between them, a half-empty glass at his side. He smiles at the sight of Oswald, as he always does, large teeth stained slightly purple. Oswald lets out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh.

“I was wondering if you had taken a sick day,” Ed greets him, filling a second glass to the brim with wine and holding it out toward him. “You usually pass by your office earlier than this.”

“Yes,” Oswald replies, taking the glass in hand. “I wanted to spend some time overseeing The Lounge tonight. Can’t let the good people of Gotham stop being afraid to look up at my level when they’re down there wasting their money.”

“Wise,” Ed smiles. “Though you have nothing to worry about. The simpletons out there seem more terrified of you than ever.”

“Do they?” Oswald perks up at that, taking a deep sip of wine. “I worry that your visits have been noticeably distracting me. I never used to spend this much time hidden away in my office.”

“Your presence has seeped into every pore of this place. People feel your eye even when it’s not, literally speaking, there. Your own icy Panopticon.”

“Hm,” Oswald says, warming at the praise. He’d like to believe that’s still true. “Perhaps I’m being paranoid.”

Ed sets his glass down at that with a soft _clink_. Oswald uses the pause in conversation to join Ed on his desktop, allowing Ed to help him up with a steady hand around his arm.

“When you say you’re being paranoid--”

Oswald takes another sip of wine, dreading the end of the sentence.

“You mean paranoid because of me?” Ed asks, tone and face revealing nothing but curiosity.

“Well,” Oswald takes another sip. “Yes.”

“Because of our...history,” Ed says, flat, not a question. “You’re worried that rumblings of our growing close again will weaken you in the eyes of _them_.”

“Doesn’t it?” Another sip.

“Weaken you?”

Ed is staring at him determinedly. Oswald stares instead into the bottom of his glass. He’s due for a refill.

“Weaken me. Yes,” Oswald affirms, tone a touch steelier than he means it to be. “It was you that taught me that, wasn’t it? More than once. ‘Love is weakness,’ and all that.”

“I don’t know that I believe that anymore,” Ed says softly, a confession.

Something about that angers Oswald. Suddenly and _profoundly_.

“Easy enough for you to say, isn’t it? _You’ve_ gotten to experience it without _dying_ for it. Without losing everything. Without humiliating yourself, over and over again, before some soulless _snake_ who couldn’t care less if --”

“Oswald,” Ed interrupts, firmly. “You know that’s not true.”

“I don’t,” Oswald spits. “That’s the pathetic part.”

“You’re not --” Ed sighs, thinking better of that sentence. “Oswald --”

“It’s been nice reconnecting, Ed, really,” Oswald says, voice quiet. “But it was deluded of us to think this would ever in a million god-forsaken years work.”

“So, just to be clear I’m following, you’re --”

“Ending this. Whatever it is.”

“Okay,” Ed says, small and defeated, after a pause. Oswald can’t bring himself to look at him. “I know I’ve said it before, and I know it’s...insufficient. But I _am_ sorry, Oswald. I hate that I did this to you.”

“But you wouldn’t take it back,” Oswald sniffs, looking up, finally, a tear rolling down the bridge of his nose.

Ed’s lips part, then close again. His eyes are glassy and desperate.

“Oswald,” Ed frowns, voice hesitant. “I can’t answer that. What I did on the dock -- that decision I made -- it’s shaped me. It’s shaped us both.”

It’s as Oswald has sometimes suspected, then. If Ed could live that afternoon over again, he isn’t sure that he would change a thing. It’s comforting, almost, to face that truth. Makes this goodbye easier. Oswald has wasted far too many years secretly clutching onto the possibility that that day could have ended differently.

“You’re right about that,” Oswald says, voice gruff but surprisingly steady given the tears forming freely in his eyes.

Ed nods, sad but accepting, and stands up. He brings a hand to Oswald’s face, the leather of his glove warm against his skin. Silently, and so softly it makes something in Oswald break all over again, Ed presses his lips to Oswald’s cheekbone, lingering for just a moment before walking out and away.

Oswald’s left alone on his desk, wondering how it’s possible that kiss hurt more than the bullet.

***

Things resume normalcy after that. The Penguin sits nightly atop The Iceberg Lounge, shadowy gaze pointed, drink in hand. There are equal parts atmospheric cheer and fear in the air bustling beneath him, business running smoothly, if not legitimately. No one dares eye him with curiosity, or make even subtle allusion to The Riddler (who has recommenced biweekly terrorizings of the city). There’s nothing left for anybody to notice, and on his better days Oswald can bring himself to feel hollow relief at that fact.

He even begins allowing select members of his wait staff into his office again on those dreary nights when he’s had too much to drink and too little to say and his skin feels tight, joints aching.

He’s having one such night, prowling the lower floors in the quiet hope of finding someone to chastise or get his hands on, when a pair of eyes meet his, deep brown and sparkling with suggestion in that way Oswald has come to recognize only ever means one thing.

He nods, and the two make their way upstairs, the waiter’s sultry _“Mr. Cobblepot, I’m--”_ met with an immediate _“I don’t care,”_ office door swinging shut behind them as Oswald brings his hands to the man’s face, down his neck, across the hard muscles of his chest. He’s tall, neck long and thin, and Oswald can’t help but think that this is probably the angle he’d experience Ed at, too, hands reaching up, underside of Ed’s jawline tantalizingly visible.

The waiter leans in for a kiss, and Oswald stops him with a quiet “no,” fingers unbuttoning not-Ed’s shirt, slow and teasing, until it’s finally shrugged off, Oswald mouthing down his torso, wet and sloppy, moving both of them deeper into the room until he feels him hit the desk.

The button of his pants goes next, zipper cold between Oswald’s fingers as he slides it down, then the pants and briefs entire in one fluid motion, leaving them hanging halfway down his thighs as Oswald’s eyes fall to his cock, partially erect, long and dark at the bulging head.

Oswald licks his hand and brings it around the shaft, stroking upwards, soft and teasing, looking up to see the man’s face.

His eyes are screwed shut, neck arched back, mouth open in a quiet moan. Oswald strokes harder, more quickly, feels him swell in his hand as low groans leave his throat, face flushing red.

He always wants to ask them, at this precise moment, their cock in his hand and heads thrown back, how it _feels_ , not as in ‘your spit-slick palm feels _great_ ’ but as in how it feels to be that open, nude and aroused and moaning, literally in the hands of another -- no, what’s _more_ , literally in the hands of a man known for the blood he’s spilt.

It’s _reckless_ , Oswald thinks, fist twisting,  _stupid_ , stroking back down, _downright suicidal_ , and still they come, sweat-drenched and squirming under The Penguin’s manipulations, The Terror of Gotham.

The hate-envy of watching becomes too great, and Oswald sinks with a wince to his knees to take the man in his mouth, the ache in his jaw and the effort of bobbing back and forth and back again a distraction from the self-loathing of watching him experience a pleasure Oswald has never been able to allow himself, a pleasure he thought possible only once, years ago, then again, secretly, more recently --   _Ed_ \--

Above him, he hears a gasp, “ _I'm coming_ ,” a whimpered moan, and there he goes, salt at the back of Oswald’s throat. He swallows dutifully, rises to his feet with his hand on the desk and turns to face the door.

“So -- what would you like me to do for you?” The man asks between heavy breaths.

“That’ll be all,” Oswald says, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping his mouth and hands.

“Oh,” comes the response, surprised. “Okay.”

He dresses quickly and Oswald holds the door open for him as he steps out.

“See you around, boss,” he says with a wink.

Oswald smiles tightly and closes the door.

Sometimes after these little _trysts_ , when the door is locked and he’s alone again, Oswald can manage to drop his hand into his pants and stroke himself to climax, eyes stinging and mouth clenched shut. He can allow himself _that_ , on good days, the dream of how he’d look and feel under another’s touch floating at the top of his mind.

Tonight, though, he’s far too drunk, leg in too much pain, and, agonizing truth be told, missing Ed too much. (It’s never just _another’s_ touch he dreams of, after all -- it’s _always_ Ed’s, and isn’t that just embarrassing.)

Swallowing back the tears he feels forming, Oswald readies himself to step back out, only about two feet from the door when it batters open with an unfathomably loud crash, the swing of it making impact and knocking Oswald to the ground, leg screaming.

He’s already yelling obscenities when he looks up, wild with a burning rage that only intensifies when realization hits.

_The Bat._

“Listen, you _brute_ , I don’t know who you think you are, but --”

He’s cut off by a monstrously strong hand around his throat, pulled up, suspended in the air, legs kicking uselessly.

“Nygma,” The Bat growls, grip at Oswald’s neck tightening.

“I -- I don’t --” Oswald is sputtering, struggling to breathe, “Know where -- he is -- “

“I know. You’re just the bait.”

Oswald’s dropped promptly back to his feet, the hand formerly around his neck now launching a grappling hook through his window, the ensuing shatter sending shards of glass everywhere.

Oswald doesn’t even have time to open his mouth in angered protest before there’s a bulky forearm around his chest, and out the fucking window they go.

Just _typical_.

***

Oswald’s sitting uncomfortably in the chair of some dim crusty theatre, hands and ankles tightly bound as he watches The Bat examine a series of cryptic markings sprayed across the stage floor in acid green.

Oswald is _fuming_ , making plans to fire if not downright _murder_ every last member of his pointless goddamn security staff, but The Bat is clearly also In A Mood, and he hasn’t forgotten all that talk of blood-hunger over Dent and that time Oswald blinded him, so he stays quiet, much as it pains him.

The Bat hasn’t said a word since launching Oswald out of his own goddamn office window, but it’s not exactly difficult to make out what’s going on here. Ed, goddamn _him_ , has no doubt rigged some undisclosed location with explosives set to go off unless his ridiculous code is cracked in time. If they both escape this alive, Oswald is really going to need to have a talk with him about just blowing up goddamn buildings without all the fanfare if he actually wants to blow up goddamn buildings. But he knows, of course, the goddamn buildings aren’t the point for that absurd, utterly _life-ruining_ man.

So here he is. Oswald would sigh, but he doesn’t want to draw The Bat’s attention.

A few more minutes of this quiet torment pass when Oswald hears the unmistakable sound of a door swinging dramatically open, the thud of its impact against the wall echoing through the room.

“Does your calling me here mean you’ve finally given up? Have I at last _stumped_ The Batman?” Ed’s voice is bouncy, full of laughter and high drama. Classic Riddler.

Oswald could _kill_ him.

The Bat doesn’t reply, he merely stares The Riddler down, mouth a twisted grimace.

“And what’s --  oh,” Ed notices Oswald as he nears the stage, that infuriating lilt to his voice falling.

Oswald isn’t really sure how he’s meant to be acting as bait when Ed apparently didn’t even know he was fucking here, but _whatever_.

“Really, Batso? You’d rather pull _this_ than just use that no doubt multiply-concussed brain of yours to play along? That’s so _boring_ \--”

“Shut up, Nygma,” The Bat roars, the rumble of it reverberating through the room.

Oswald is glaring heatedly at Ed, who is refusing to look his way, eyes trained on the stage.

The Bat leaps down, cloak streaming menacingly behind him, and wraps a hand round Oswald’s throat, lifting him inches off the chair. Oswald scrabbles at his forearm with bound hands, with unsurprisingly little success.

At least Ed is looking at him now, his mouth thin and his brow furrowed over his domino mask.

“Please,” Ed says, voice a mocking hiss. “We both know you aren’t going to kill him. When have you ever killed _anyone_? Let alone an innocent -- “

The Bat scoffs at that.

Oswald is going to kill them _both_.

“I wasn’t going to kill him last time, either,” The Bat releases Oswald as he says it, and Oswald falls into the chair in an undignified crumble.

“What are you talking about?” Ed is sneering, voice carefully unaffected, but it takes him a beat too long to reply.

The Bat smiles. A horrifying thing.

“Funny thing about your comeback a few months ago,” The Bat has stalked over to Ed now, slow and intimidating. “Was the _timing_.”

Ed’s posture visibly deflates at that, but he smiles, wide and stubborn.

“Had my eye on plenty of criminals during your stint as a detective,” The Bat continues, Ed’s smile growing more and more forced with each passing syllable, “But only one seemed to bother you.”

Oswald watches, disbelieving. Ed’s eyes dart in his direction for only the most fleeting of seconds, but neither man watching misses it. The Bat’s grin settles into a smirk.

“That very same day, you were spotted at The Iceberg Lounge for the first time since your so-called reform. In two days, you were back to your old ways. The papers speculated about what set you off again, but it was clear. You were distracting me.”

“Well,” Ed laughs, bringing two hands to The Bat’s shoulders. (Oswald would bury his face in his hands were they not bound.) “I sincerely hope you didn’t strain yourself too badly putting all _that_ together, but given your embarrassing inability to answer the simple puzzle before you --”

“Enough,” The Bat grips him by the lapels of his suit jacket. “Tell me where the bomb is, or I hurt Penguin. Badly. In ways that will stay with him.”

Ed’s chest puffs up, defiant. Oswald is already wondering which of his limbs he’s going to have to part functional ways with when Ed places his hands over the ones gripping at his chest, face tilting intimately close to The Bat’s.

“I know who you are,” Ed growls, low and deadly, and,  _oh_ , Oswald had nearly forgotten how utterly _terrifying_ Ed could be.

The Bat blinks at that, and it’s Ed’s turn to smile.

“This _place_. The puzzle. The bomb. It all points to _you_. The one _under_ that pointy-eared mask.”

“Wayne Enterprises,” The Bat realizes aloud, voice almost soft.

“Ding ding ding,” Ed laughs, manic. “See? Wasn’t that easy? Wasn’t that just _obvious_?”

Ed’s still laughing, victorious, as The Bat drops him and makes a hurried call to who Oswald can only guess is Jim Gordon: “ _The Riddler’s bomb. Wayne Enterprises. You guys take care of it -- I’m bringing him in._ ”

“You’ll be doing _what_ now?” Ed asks, smugger than he has any right to be, Oswald thinks.

“Bringing you in,” The Bat repeats, punctuating each word with a pause.

“You must be forgetting that I know your secret identity --”

“No one is going to believe a depraved loon like you.”

“That’s…” Ed pauses, frowning. “Even if that _is_ true, it will still inspire investigation if I --”

The Bat sighs, reaching into his utility belt and flinging one of his widely-feared batarangs in Oswald’s direction in a movement so quick and fluid Oswald barely sees it happen.

The pain of it tearing into his thigh, though -- _that_ he feels, an involuntary cry filling the echoing void of the theatre.

“If I aimed that right, it’s currently buried in his femoral artery.”

Ed moves to take a closer look, but is slammed to a halt by The Bat’s arm.

Oswald’s heart in his throat, in cold sweat from the mingled adrenaline, pain, and fear.

“You know there’s only so much time he can go without medical attention before he bleeds out.”

“Well, that actually depends on --”

“Ed,” Oswald interrupts, desperate. He has nothing to lose by speaking up at this point. “ _Please_.”

Ed looks over at him. Oswald would like to think he’s conflicted, but he can’t help but feel like he’s back on that dock again all those years ago. Begging for his life from an ultimately indifferent beholder.

Face hardening, Ed turns back to The Bat, and Oswald feels his heart break all over again.

But then: “Arkham?” Ed asks, small and barely audible.

He gets a nod in response, and Ed closes his eyes with a deep, pained sigh.

“Fine. _Fine_! But get him to a hospital first.”

The Bat nods and makes quick work of tying Ed down to a chair.

Oswald’s head is spinning.

“This is cheap, _Bruce_ , and you know it. You _cheated_.”

The Bat offers no response, turning away from Ed to pick Oswald up, bridal style, carrying him outside. It’s gentler than Oswald thought him capable of.

There’s already an ambulance waiting outside, and Oswald is impressed despite himself. The Bat really did have this all figured out.

“I didn’t actually aim for the artery,” The Bat admits, as he carefully drops Oswald down onto a stretcher. “Some stitches and you’ll be fine.”

Oswald’s face goes hot at that. Cheated, indeed.

“How thoughtful,” he says drily. “I’ll keep that in mind as I’m aiding Ed’s revenge on you.”

The ambulance doors swing shut and, watching his pant leg get cut open, Oswald can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.

 _Sacrifice,_  he thinks. _Love is sacrifice_.

***

Getting Ed out of Arkham is a breeze, of course. The GCPD and The Bat alike would be horrified to discover how many Arkham guards are regular customers at The Iceberg Lounge, sharp and always looking for opportunities to prove themselves to the king of Gotham’s underworld.

Careful to avoid doing anything that could link him even circumstantially to Ed’s escape, Oswald refrains from visiting him. He sends gifts, though, as he did once before, anonymous but wrapped in black polka-dotted paper he knows Ed will recognize.

In the meantime, he works on Batproofing the Lounge. Unbreakable glass. Neon blue lights on the exterior of the building that leave no unlit nooks for shadowy human rodents to lurk in unseen. A team of snipers working nightly at vantage points around the building. Added security in the form of superpowered rogues at the uppermost levels Oswald haunts most frequently.

The next time The Bat wants to come near him, he’s going to have to make an appointment. Like everyone else.

Oswald is on giddy edge the day of Ed’s planned release, spending an uncharacteristic amount of time at the Lounge on the ground floor, gazing over at the entrance compulsively.

When 2 AM comes and goes, Oswald opts to go home, disappointed and worried that something has gone awry with the plan. There’d been no news coverage of a Riddler escape, and Oswald refuses to accept that Ed simply didn’t want to see him. Not after what he revealed before The Bat.

He’s considering the possibility of passing by Arkham tomorrow morning, perhaps under the guise of meeting someone else (last he heard, Two-Face had been caught and locked up) when he steps into his living room to find none other than Ed sitting on his couch, legs crossed. He’s in his old glasses and a suit a subtler shade of green than he’s been sporting recently.

“Ed!” Oswald exclaims, flooded with surprise, relief, and something like desire. It’s a familiar but forgotten feeling, one that used to be accompanied by a tight hug, but they haven’t done that in _years_. Oswald opts to simply sit next to him instead, perhaps a touch closer than he’d have dared a few weeks ago.

“Oswald,” Ed smiles warmly, and the sight of it makes Oswald’s breath catch in his throat. “It’s my understanding that I owe you a thank you. Several, in fact -- the gifts were much appreciated.”

“I owe you one, too,” Oswald smiles back, before frowning slightly. “I was expecting you to show up at The Lounge earlier. When you didn’t, and I heard nothing about The Riddler escaping Arkham --”

“The fools probably haven’t realized I’m gone yet.”

“You’re probably right about that. All the clever ones there are working for me.”

Ed laughs.

“As for why I opted to come here, and not The Lounge -- well, I think partly I just missed this place, and finally felt like maybe I could come in now without you launching a heavy object at my head on sight. _But_ , more pressingly than that, it is nigh _impossible_ to sneak into The Lounge undetected now. Your efforts to keep Batman away should prove effective.”

“You could have just walked through the front door, you know. Staff have been alerted that you’re to be allowed upstairs without issue.”

“Oh,” Ed says, surprised. “I was under the impression you wouldn’t want me publicly visiting given, well, everything.”

“You weren’t even _privately_ visiting me anymore when The Bat swooped into my office and _abducted_ me, so I’m starting to think it doesn’t matter as much as I imagined it did.”

“One could argue that our closeness being sensed and used against us only validates your initial concerns,” Ed speaks neutrally, as though he’s a mere objective observer.

“I suppose one _could_ argue that,” Oswald concedes, looking down at his lap. “But -- and I can only speak for myself here --”

Oswald swallows, deeply nervous. He forces himself to look up and meet Ed’s curious gaze before continuing.

“I went years and years at a distance from you, and my...well, my feelings never changed much,” Oswald looks down again.

“Feelings?”

“For you,” Oswald clarifies, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“Oh,” Ed says, gently realizing. “So --”

“ _So_ , I figure if The Bat or anyone wanted to use you against me, it’d work whether we were in regular contact or not, so -- we may as well just --”

“I see,” Ed smiles. It looks friendly enough, but is hard to read, and isn’t that just Ed _all over_.

“I’m not suggesting we go gallivanting through the streets of Gotham arm in arm or anything,” Oswald blurts out, rushed and self-conscious, “But The Lounge is Batproof now, I’m working on similarly renovating this place next, and I don’t think anyone who works for me actually noticed or cared much when you were around, I was just projecting my own doubts onto them on account of the ‘you shot me and left me for dead’ nastiness, but --”

Ed laughs gently, eyebrows raised, and the embarrassing extent of Oswald’s own rambling nervousness strikes him.

Cheeks warm, he presses on, words slower and more deliberate.

“But I think I’m over that. Or...I’m trying to be. And even if they do care, or talk, what of it? I’d rather have your friendship than their fear.”

“So long as there’s still some fear, of course.”

“Of course,” Oswald agrees, grateful for the levity. “I am The Damn Penguin, after all.”

“I only have one question,” Ed says, eyes bright. “Friendship?”

“We could call it something else,” Oswald answers, slightly put out. “A partnership or -- or collegiality --”

“Hmm,” Ed muses, smile even bigger. “Or…”

In lieu of completing the sentence, he takes Oswald’s chin in his hand, ungloved and soft. He inches closer, sure and steady, and presses his lips against Oswald’s.

“ _Oh,_ ” Oswald can’t help but breathe against his lips, reddening when Ed breaks the kiss to laugh.

Ed brings his hand down Oswald’s chin to softly cup his neck, fingers stroking at the tender piece of skin just behind his earlobe. Oswald is hot all over even before Ed leans in to kiss him again, lips parted this time, insides wet and soft. Oswald kisses back, feverish mouth inexperienced but eager (he didn’t make a habit of kissing the men he brought into his office). He lets Ed lead, tongue stroking his languidly, as Ed’s other hand grips the open half of Oswald’s neck and Oswald just _melts_ into his touch, hands gravitating naturally towards Ed’s waist.

Oswald pulls back, breaths heavy and lips puffy.

“How long have you wanted to do that?” he asks.

“Longer than even I realize, I think,” Ed admits, almost shy, and it’s so damn _sweet_ Oswald can’t even be embarrassed when his eyes well up, tears sliding down his cheeks and onto Ed’s hands where they’re still gripping Oswald’s neck.

“I think that might be true of me as well,” Oswald sniffs, thinking way back to the green light of Ed’s apartment, his singing voice and that quiet careful way he’d redressed his bandages every night.

Oswald thinks he sees Ed’s eyes go watery, but then he’s pressing their lips together again and his mind goes blank with buzzing color, hands sliding up Ed’s back.


	2. 2.

Oswald and Ed spend the next two weeks lying low, Oswald busy with Iceberg Lounge gang inter-fighting and Ed preparing for his foray back into headline-grabbing villainy.

Their relationship post-kiss hasn’t been dissimilar from their previous modes of intimacy, more jagged and distant than the golden days before that bootleg Kringle doppleganger, but considerably less strained with regrets and distrust than the uneasy friendship they’d fallen into after The Riddler un-reformed. They see each other near daily now, drink and plot and kiss, and Oswald feels lighter than he has, well, maybe _ever_.

They’re in Ed’s apartment one night, empty wine bottles littering the table before them, making out, sloppy-drunk but enthusiastic, when Ed’s hand slides down Oswald’s side, settling on his crotch and squeezing softly.

Oswald’s eyes fly open, lips and tongue stilling as his back goes stiff.

Ed retreats immediately.

“I’m sorry, is this...too fast? We’ve been at this for a couple of weeks now, and with the talk among your waiting staff, I only assumed --”

“The _talk_?” Oswald’s face goes red. He can feel the beginnings of burgeoning fury coiling up in his chest.

“Nothing specific -- I just -- you remember, that time I waited for you outside your office and you had that waiter with you? I assumed --”

“Yes, you keep saying that. What did you _assume_ , exactly?”

“I should have just asked,” Ed sighs, cheeks pink, and his visible discomfort softens Oswald somewhat.

“So ask,” is all Oswald says in reply, kindly as he can manage given the tightness in his chest and the tremble in his fingers. He brings a hand to Ed’s knee and strokes, an apology.

“Okay,” Ed laughs, relieved. “You’ve had sex before, yes?”

“Well,” Oswald pauses, deliberating how best to explain the _particularity_ of his experience. “Yes. But no one’s ever -- _touched_ me. There, or, well, anywhere.”

“I see,” Ed says, though Oswald can practically hear the wheels desperately whirring in his head as he works out what _that_ means, exactly.

Oswald bites back a smile.

“So,” Ed continues, after a few moments of seemingly rigorous thought, “You’ve touched people -- men, specifically -- but you’ve only...given pleasure. Yes?”

“Right,” Oswald nods, slightly light-headed.

“Am I correct in thinking, then, that you’ve never had penetrative sex?”

“No,” Oswald affirms, cheeks hot. “I mean, _yes_ , you’re correct in thinking that. I’ve never had -- ah --”

“Penetrative sex,” Ed supplies, clinical and ever-helpful.

It’s a cold, decidedly unsexy way of putting it, but hearing Ed repeat it makes something low in Oswald stir with liquid heat, his pulse rushing.

“I’ve never had it, but,” Oswald feels his heartbeat hammering in his neck, “I think I’d like to.”

“Good,” Ed says, smiling.

“Not _now._ ”

“I didn’t imagine you meant now,” Ed rubs a circle on his thigh, turning down to watch it move, before looking up at Oswald again, desire on his face. “Would you let me touch you? Just hands, maybe?”

“Um,” Oswald, regrettably, feels vague nausea replacing the heat of just a few seconds ago. “Not now.”

“Okay,” Ed says, bringing his hand up from his thigh to Oswald’s face.

He kisses the tip of his nose, then his mouth. It’s chaste, almost, and somehow that turns Oswald on all over again. He considers the scenario for a moment: Ed’s clear arousal, his own curiosity, the things his hands and mouth already feel reasonably comfortable doing.

“Can _I_ touch _you_?” Oswald asks, voice trembling.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Ed breathes.

Without hesitating, Oswald undoes Ed’s tie, pulling it off and around his head before moving to the buttons of his shirt, popping them open one after another at a speed he normally doesn’t operate at, but this is _Ed_ , not some nameless body, and he’s achingly impatient to get his fingers on all that skin he keeps hidden away beneath his suits.

The shirt is opened and off in seconds, Ed shrugging it off and dropping it to the floor beneath them as Oswald stares, enraptured, at his bared shoulders, collarbones, torso. Hands slowly feeling around, Oswald brushes thumbs against Ed’s nipples, rubbing more deliberately when they harden to the touch.

Ed is quiet, but his eyes are closed, face flushed and bottom lip chewed up between his teeth. Oswald watches his expression change as he rubs faster, then takes a nipple between two fingers, squeezing --

Ed shifts, body rising beneath Oswald’s touch, but still he makes no sound, and Oswald realizes he is _determined_ to hear him moan.

Oswald places an open-mouthed kiss to his neck, feeling for the pulse of his artery with his tongue and dropping his hand to Ed’s still-clothed crotch, rubbing, and smiling against sweat-salty skin when he feels Ed’s heart rate escalate beneath his tongue.

Oswald pulls away, fingers working at the button and zipper of his pants, pulling them off as Ed lifts his hips off the cushion beneath him to allow Oswald to slide them halfway down his thighs, then the same to his briefs (green, of course, he notes).

He swallows back a moan at the unveiled sight of Ed’s cock, long and thick and practically at full swell already. Oswald wraps his fist around it, dry at first, finding the bump of a vein and tracing it up to the tip, then circling the purple-red head, the slit of it wet.

Oswald looks back up at Ed’s face as he slowly strokes down, then up, down, up, the pressure of his fist intensifying with each stroke, watching raptly as Ed’s eyes squeeze shut tight enough that the skin round them wrinkles up, his mouth falling open, panted breaths coming quicker and louder.

Oswald draws his hand back just long enough to run his tongue along his palm, coating it with saliva as he’s done several times before, re-wrapping his moistened hand around Ed’s cock when he’s finished and stroking up anew, movements smoother now with the wetness, moving slow and soft as he lets Ed adjust to the added sensitivity, speeding up when Ed’s hand grips the back of his neck hard, an “ _oh_ ” leaving his lips as his head falls back, and Oswald increases the pace, relentlessly fast, Ed’s thighs spreading as he lets go and moans (at damn  _last_ ), loud and throaty, whispered cries of Oswald’s name soon joining the stream of gasping, wanton sound.

Normally, this is around the point of jerking a guy off that triggers Oswald’s self-loathing, the twisted vulnerable faces of pleasure before him a source of resentment as much as envy. Ed, though -- Ed looks _beautiful_ , the dark shadow of his cheekbones almost matched in deepened tone by the flushed scarlet of his skin, glasses askew as his head lolls back, mouth wide open, tongue hanging loose --

“Oswald, I’m --”

“Wait,” Oswald whispers, kissing his warm cheek before dropping to a knee onto the floor before him, too electrified to focus on the resistance of his leg, taking the head of Ed’s cock into his mouth and sinking down, cheeks hollowing out around the girth of it, rising up and then below again, imagining what the length of this would feel like elsewhere --

Ed lets out a multisyllabic, strangled cry that Oswald knows is intended to act as a warning, so he grips Ed’s hips tighter, jaw working faster, corners of his stretched-out lips quirking up as Ed comes, _loudly_ , cries cohering gradually into something that sounds like Oswald’s name as Oswald swallows. He lingers like that for just a moment, Ed softening inside his mouth, then brings his head up and away, watching Ed’s spent cock flop down onto the cushion between his thighs.

Ed is sprawled back across the couch, hands to his sides, legs parted, skin glistening, and isn’t _that_ a sight. Oswald is grinning up at him, and he feels like he’s glowing, too, eyes stinging and cock so painfully hard he thinks he might come if he so much brushes up against Ed’s bare leg on his way back up to the couch.

Looking down at him, breaths finally slowing, Ed leans forward to grab Oswald by the shoulders, steadying him as he stands and plops back down next to Ed on the couch.

“Well,” Ed says. “That was --”

“Good?” Oswald asks, mock-eager, like he doesn’t _know_. Like he can’t still taste him and feel the memory of his own moaned name reverberating down his spine.

“Good,” Ed confirms, smiling, eyes dazed.

He looks down at Oswald’s lap, and Oswald feels a wave of electric fire spread up his legs and settle all the more noticeably in his already-aching groin.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to -- ?”

“Um,” is the only response Oswald can manage. He wants to say _yes_ , because after what Ed just shared with him all his fears and insecurities seem needless, but, in the same breath he wants to say _no_ , because this has happened so fast and part of him is still processing the enormity of what it means.

“What if,” Ed offers, watching Oswald’s conflict carefully, “What if you touched yourself?”

Ed’s voice is gravelly, lids of his eyes heavy, and Oswald actually _moans_ , helpless, by way of reply.

“Yes, okay,” he breathes, “Can you kiss me?”

Ed inches his (still very naked) hips closer to Oswald’s fully-clothed ones, cupping his face with both hands, and kisses him as requested, lips closed at first, then wet and falling open, taking Oswald’s bottom lip between.

Hands shaking, Oswald pulls his pants open and sticks a hand inside, touching himself through his underwear at first, growing bolder and sliding beneath that when Ed glides his tongue back into his mouth, Oswald’s lips parting further to accommodate him as he grips his cock in hand, whole body _alight_ with the feel of it, of his own hand and Ed’s mouth and the memory of his cum, Oswald’s tongue and lips and jaw moving in sync with the slow but purposeful rubs of his fist.

Then Ed is moving his mouth across his jawline, kiss-walking down to his neck, teeth scraping soft against his pulse point, and Oswald gasps his name aloud, “ _Ed Ed Ed_ ,” hand thrusting, cock throbbing, the suck of Ed’s mouth at his neck, and he’s coming, seeing _white_ , spilling all over his hand, the feel and smell and accompanying _cry_ of it leaving him gasping for breath, limbs atremble.  

Oswald is still shaking when Ed pulls his mouth from his neck.

“Are you okay?” Ed asks, concerned.

“Yes,” Oswald says, and he _means_ it but he’s also crying and too overstimulated to process why.

Ed doesn’t press the issue, opting instead to wrap his arms around Oswald, allowing him to bury his head in the bare skin of Ed’s shoulder. Ed rubs soothing circles across his shoulder blades and his back until the shaking subsides, the tears ceasing shortly after.

“I’m proud of you, you know,” Ed murmurs into his ear, and Oswald clings onto him all the tighter.

***

Oswald spends much of the next week internally reliving that night: the weight of Ed in his mouth, the openness of his post-orgasm sprawl, the way he’d held him after and eventually cleaned him up and tucked him into bed.

His desire for Ed has always been physical on some level, obsessively reliant on hugs and casual touches, but now that he’s palmed the hard-soft musculature beneath his skin, tasted his sweat and felt the beat of his heart beneath his tongue, a whole new _something_ has opened up between them. Oswald is suddenly and _achingly_ desperate for more. He wants to know Ed as the women Ed has fucked have known him, wants things it embarrasses, scares, and, most of all, _excites_ him to want.

He knows it falls to him to pick a time, a place, and make it happen. He wants it, Ed wants it, and so it should be easy, but every morning he gets dressed and looks down at his body, sees that damn white-pink scar and feels his blood run colder than that water had been beneath the dock.

He’s told Ed he was moving past that, or trying to, and he is, in a way, but then in his nightmares Ed sticks a knife-sharp finger back into the scar and Oswald wakes up drenched in sweat, hands clutching round his middle as if to contain the bleeding.

When he’s actually _with_ Ed, all is well, easy to distinguish the warm fondness of his face from the empty stare of the one that’d watched him sink underwater, bleeding out. But then he’s asleep, and it all comes back, or he’s showering, scar stubbornly still there, and Oswald, for all the peace he’s made, the sacrifices between them, all the years that have passed, finds himself wondering: _What the fuck am I doing?_

Ed knows something is off, of course. If the postcoital crying of the other night hadn’t been enough, Oswald’s hot-then-cold physical affections since had surely clued him in. He was, after all, a detective once upon a short-lived time.

They’re at the top floor of The Iceberg Lounge, cast in twin shadow looking at the blue-lit bodies below, when Ed finally clears his throat and brings it up.

“Oswald, I just want to make sure you know: should you be thinking that you never want to breach the more physical aspects of our relationship again, I would be alright with that.”

Oswald glances at him sideways, surprised. They tend to stick to business-only chatter when in public, though it is true that no one can hear them up here.

“I appreciate that, Ed,” is all Oswald can immediately think to say, comically lacking though it feels.

They’re both silent for a long while after that, but Oswald can tell that Ed remains deep in troubling thought.

“You can talk to me,” Ed says suddenly. “About what’s bothering you. I know that this -- us -- is complicated, to say the least, and I know that making yourself vulnerable in front of me has ended poorly for you in the past. But I confess I’d hoped we were reestablishing trust.”

“Ed --”

“And I can see that it’s maybe less challenging for _me_ to hope that, given --”

“ _Ed_ ,” Oswald interrupts, raising a hand impatiently.

Ed falls quiet, hands clasped in front of him.

“Those men I used to bring into my office,” Oswald says after a spot of internal debate. “I hated them. Their eagerness to fall into my hands -- _my_ hands, specifically. I’ve developed a reputation. A man not to cross. A man not to even _bother_ unless you are damn sure you have something to offer. A man who can order the death of you and your loved ones without so much as opening his mouth.”

“It’s a reputation you’ve earned,” Ed says, and Oswald can hear the small smile shaping the words.

“And still they’d line up to get a taste of me. So to speak. And I’d...touch them, and I’d watch them moan, open and trusting and _stupid_ , and I’d wonder: ‘ _What is wrong with you? You know who I am. Do you want to die_?’”

Ed turns to look at Oswald’s silhouette, quiet.

“It’s the same question I ask myself, now, every time I think about -- us. This.”

“I understand,” Ed says, voice thick with guilt.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Oswald makes clear, and it feels like a decision made as he says it, something in his brain clicking into place. “It’s that I’m -- processing. A great deal has happened very quickly.”

“It has,” Ed agrees. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I suppose I should thank you for coaxing it out of me,” Oswald smiles, a little pained.

“Still, it can’t have been easy,” Ed considers him for a moment. “You’ve always been braver than me.”

Oswald looks down, unsure what to say. Ed doesn’t seem to expect a response. Silence stretches between them, but it’s comfortable this time.

That night, Ed visits Oswald in his dreams, reaching inside him, _again_ , but there’s no blood this time, and there’s a decidedly more pleasant entry point.

He wakes up sweating, but warm and heavy all over. Smiling sleepily, he slips his hand into his pajama bottoms, Ed’s name on his lips.

***

Things get easier after that. The nightmares stop, or at least get less frequent, and Oswald and Ed slip back into a more casual physical intimacy (still consisting mostly of Oswald feeling around with hands and mouth, but he lets Ed’s fingers slither beneath his shirt and into his underwear a couple of times).

Oswald is slowly readying himself for more, grateful for Ed’s patience, growing bolder in his body both with Ed and alone, feeling out new places and willing away the war-torn walls that have kept him from allowing himself pleasure for so, so long.

One afternoon, feeling quite ready, Oswald stops by Ed’s apartment, unannounced and breathless with excitement.

“I’ve informed my staff I’m taking tomorrow night off,” Oswald declares, chest puffed out.

“Okay,” Ed says, happy to see him but tone slightly confused. “Is there...a reason you stopped by to tell me this a day in advance?”

“Yes,” Oswald says, biting back nervousness. “I was thinking, if you’re free, you could come by the mansion tomorrow night and -- spend the night --”

“Of course,” Ed smiles, eyebrows raised just a hair. “And when you say ‘spend the night,’ you do mean --”

“Yes.”

“Sex,” Ed finishes anyway.

Oswald nods, ears hot.

“And by sex you mean --”

“ _Yes_.”

“Penetrative.”

“Christ, Ed,” Oswald rubs the bridge of his nose with his hand. “ _Yes_.”

“I just wanted to be clear,” Ed’s face is kind, the words light with amusement. “Now, for the sake of preparation, are you thinking that you want to be the --”

“If you finish that sentence, I will order Zsasz to murder you,” Oswald replies. He’s only _half-_ kidding.

Ed’s lips quirk up with barely contained laughter, before he inhales, readying to speak again.

“The _preparation_ is for me to worry about,” Oswald snaps before Ed can get another word in. “You just have to show up. Does that answer your question?”

“I believe it does, yes,” Ed grins. His cheeks are, at least, slightly pink.

“Okay. Well. Good,” Oswald shifts his cane from one hand to the other. “I should get going. Harley and Ivy have requested a meeting with me for reasons I can only shudder to imagine.”

“Ohh, say hi to Harley to me,” Ed chirps after a sympathetic wince. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. I mean, tonight, most definitely, but...also tomorrow.”

“Also tomorrow,” Oswald affirms, smile shy.

Oswald steps outside, half-expecting The Bat or one of Gotham’s other harbingers of misery to snatch him up and away, lest he be allowed to enjoy something, for once, but the street is clear, save for a few passing cars and a couple of homeless people exchanging conversation on a bench.

Reaching into his pocket, Oswald hands them both a crumpled wad of bills (in a move uncharacteristic of him) and heads to work, humming under his breath all the while.

***

Oswald’s heart thrums as he hears the knock at his front door announcing Ed’s arrival. Smoothing his hair down, he hurries over as quickly as his bad leg will allow him, swinging the door open with an eager-nervous smile.

“Hello,” Ed greets as he walks in, bottle of red wine in hand. He examines Oswald for a moment, who is standing rather self-consciously in a silk robe patterned in eggplant purple and gold. “You look lovely, if a bit underdressed.”

“I figured it’d save us time if I just wore this,” Oswald smiles, pleased, as he closes and locks the door behind them.

“I’m in no rush,” Ed says, settling the bottle of down onto a table. “But you’re probably right about that. You do love your layers.”

Ed grabs Oswald’s shoulders with a light squeeze. It’s playful, but Oswald has been on vibrating edge _all day_ and the touch feels electric through the thin fabric.

Standing on his tiptoes, Oswald wraps a hand around the back of Ed’s neck and brings their mouths together, wasting no time with close-lipped softness, tongue at the ready. Ed’s hand settles at the small of Oswald’s back, tongue only too eager to meet Oswald’s own, bodies radiating heat and pressed close together.

“Do you -- do you want some wine?” Ed breaks the kiss to ask, lips reddened.

“No,” Oswald says, sharp, dizzy with arousal, leaning back into Ed’s touch where it still lingers at his lower back. “I want you to fuck me.”

Every square inch of his skin _burns up_ as the sentence leaves his mouth, balls tingling and thighs going tense.

Ed’s mouth drops open, something in his countenance changing, heated and dangerous, almost. Oswald’s breath hitches.

Quick and with a strength Oswald hardly thought him capable of, Ed grabs Oswald by the sides of his hips and hoists him up around his waist, Oswald’s legs wrapping around him with a startled gasp as he grips Ed’s neck for more support.

Mouths crashing back together with renewed urgency, Ed carries Oswald over to his bedroom, lips never slowing, and Oswald blesses the star-speckled heavens for the man’s coordination as he groans into his mouth, full weight in Ed’s strong arms, cock already hard against his belly.

Ed drops Oswald onto his back atop his bed, Oswald’s legs spread-eagle, the slit of his robe falling open. Eyes hungry, Ed roughly unties the belt around the waist, pulling Oswald out of it entirely, eyes devouring Oswald’s nude form, pale and scarred and squirming, cock upright.

Shrugging off his jacket, pants, and briefs, Ed keeps his gaze on Oswald, who is gripping the covers tight beneath him, the vulnerable exposure of his spread position effecting him as viscerally as Ed’s touch, which comes next, hands groping at his neck, his chest, his nipples, and, more softly, the bullet scar, Oswald seeing inky-scarlet streaks behind his eyes as Ed circles the sensitive skin outside of it.

It’s nearly like his nightmares, but Ed’s fingertip is blunt and calloused, rubbing softly, face dropping down to nibble at Oswald’s collarbone while his left hand moves to his dick, clumsy strokes making Oswald’s toes curl, grunting helplessly as the three points of sticky contact across his body make the room around him spin, hips rocking up as a wordless plea leaves his lips, the unhalting rubs-strokes-sucks too overwhelming to bear.

“Ed, please,” Oswald begs, and Ed takes his cue, mouth and hands moving up, palms at Oswald’s face, wet mouth at the shell of his ear.

“Do you trust me?” Ed growls into it, question lilting gently upward at the end, and Oswald chokes out a _yes_ , the thrill of it a jolt to his groin.

Ed slides down, trailing a fiery line of licks and light bites down Oswald’s torso, then the tender insides of his thighs, hands gripping Oswald beneath the knees and lifting his legs open and up, Ed peppering kisses atop the newly-exposed flesh of Oswald’s ass before parting the cheeks with big hands, pausing to drink in the sight, and Oswald is set _ablaze_.

No amount of fantasizing or nightmaring had prepared him for this, for the reality of Ed’s face between his raised spread thighs, hands holding Oswald wide open while Ed stares as if ravenous at Oswald’s exposed hole.

Oswald feels his muscles down there clenching, self-conscious and hungry, and he covers his face with his hands, breathing hard through the space between his palms, bracing himself for whatever’s next.

As it’s happening, Ed’s licked-wet lips teasingly grazing down Oswald’s spread crack, he realizes this next step was obvious, but even knowing wouldn’t have readied him for the _feel_ of it, tender, _humiliatingly_ intimate: Ed’s lips, which he never thought he’d get to feel at all, now _here_ , this most hidden of his creases.

Ed’s lips part, and he breathes hard and hot, the warm puff of it settling just atop Oswald’s hole, then replaced by thick wet tongue, underside laving straight down and Oswald _yells_ , face, chest, cock, and crack aflame as Ed licks a fat stripe back up, before pointing his tongue to a hardened tip and circling around the rim of Oswald’s puckered opening, the first lick-around quick, the second slower, alternating rhythm and direction as the pressure amplifies with each deliberate stroke, ‘till Oswald is working to spread his thighs further, get his ass _higher_ , give Ed more and get it in return.

Sensing his bodily plea, Ed slides the tip of his tongue just inside, then wriggles in deeper and Oswald’s making noises he’s never even heard _tortured_ men make, throat open and howling as every nerve ending inside him ignites, throbbing sparks of pleasure shooting down his thighs, up his torso, body tightening even as his hole loosens and loosens around Ed’s probing tongue.

Ed retreats suddenly, tongue slipping out, Oswald’s ass cheeks smacking back together as Ed gently pushes his legs back down, rubbing hard circles into the damaged one lest having it held up for so long caused strain (it did, probably, but Oswald’s sensory focus is distracted elsewhere, on the tingling wetness left inside his crack).

With one final circular rub down his calf, Ed sprawls himself over Oswald’s still-heaving body, holding his face and meeting his eyes (somewhere along the way, Oswald realizes, Ed lost his glasses).

“Are you good?” Ed asks, mouth a smear of saliva, eyes gentle.

“Mmhmm,” Oswald breathes, rocking helplessly against Ed’s hip.

“Do you still want --”

“Obviously,” Oswald rolls his eyes, good-humored, breaths slowing. He grabs the collar of Ed’s shirt, which he for some reason still hasn’t taken off. “Remove this first, though.”

Ed sits up, unpopping a few buttons hurriedly and pulling it over his head. He’s fully naked now, hard cock risen to meet flat belly. With his hair mussed up and the soft curves of his muscled arms shining, Oswald can’t help but run light fingers up his thigh, settling on his hip.

“You’re so handsome,” Oswald tells him, voice watery, because there are still so many levels on which he can’t believe this is happening, that he could be so lucky and so doomed all at once.

Ed lays back over him, face beaming, and he runs his fingers through Oswald’s sweat-sticky hair.

“So are you,” Ed replies, sincere, and that means _alot_ coming from someone who’s just had his face buried in his ass.

Oswald brings a hand over his mouth, emotional but giggling softly.

“Okay,” Ed breathes, fond, “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you inside me,” Oswald says, flushing, running his hands up the mound of Ed’s ass and the hard muscles of his back.

“How do you want it?” Ed asks, voice low and measured, but eyes sparking, hips rocking down onto Oswald.

“On my stomach, I think,” Oswald whispers. “It will be easier on my leg.”

Ed presses a kiss to his neck and shifts, slowly turning Oswald around ‘till he’s flat on his belly, lying bare above the splayed-out robe still lying discarded beneath him.

He feels rather than sees Ed move above him, reaching for the lube Oswald left sitting on the nightstand and uncapping it. He lifts Oswald’s hips and places a fluffy pillow beneath them, and Oswald lets out a tiny _mmmm_ of pleasure, cock grazing against the silky-cool surface, ass raised and ready to mount.

Ed palms the cheeks of his ass and spreads, holding them open with a hand, pausing, then bringing what feels like two lube-slick fingers to Oswald’s entrance, rubbing the rim hard with scissoring motions. With no warning, Ed sinks his fingers in, all the way down to the knuckle, Oswald arching his back up and clenching down, as if to suction Ed in further, slender digits twisting, Oswald dilating around them, gasping hot-faced into the mattress against his face.

“That feels -- so _good_ \--” he sputters, and it _does_ , the fullness and pressure of it heightened by his mental image of what he must look like to Ed in this moment, spread ass raised and rocking round his fingers, face beet-red and smashed into the cushioning below.

Ed replies by pulling his fingers back, one slow knuckle at a time, then _slamming_ them back in again, angle different this time, then once more and again-again-again until -- _oh_ \-- Ed hits a spot that makes Oswald’s insides feel like molten lava, lifting his hips further up and grinding back down onto the pillow beneath in keeping with Ed’s rapidfire movements, each slide back inside making Oswald’s thighs shake, unsteady, the pitch of his breath-moans rising.

Ed pulls out completely, rubbing his dry hand on the small of Oswald’s back, a warning and a promise of what’s to come, and though Oswald can’t crane his neck back far enough to actually see him, he can feel the heat of Ed’s gaze on his face.

Oswald hears the lube bottle pop uncapped again, wiggling his hips back closer to Ed in anticipation, fearful but so turned on he’s in actual tears. He’s spread again, thick blunt pressure situated up against his hole, Oswald and Ed alike unmoving for several moments.

The pressure increases slightly, then, relentless but still not _inside_ , Ed sliding the head of his cock up a touch, then down, the subtle friction nowhere near enough to satiate this empty ache, Oswald’s hands fisting in the covers as he clamps down around nothing, the fleshy slip-slide against his breathing rim _exquisite_ but unlikely to get him to the climax and release he needs, and needs _soon_.

“Ed,” Oswald cries, hoarse, an angry plead, “Please. Just. _Fuck me_.”

Oswald hears a quiet chuckle and then feels a ragged rush of pain-pleasure-pain as Ed drives in, _fully_ in, in one rough fluid thrust, hips smacking against Oswald’s ass. Oswald is groaning, arching back, spreading his legs further to accommodate Ed’s girth, the stretch of it somehow unimaginable even after taking his fingers.

“ _Ungh_ ,” Oswald exhales, grateful now for Ed’s stillness, adjusting enough to start experimentally squeezing around him, multicolored flickers of light dancing behind his screwed-shut eyelids as he relaxes enough to focus on the gorge of it, thick and blazing and lighting up nerve endings Oswald never even imagined he had.

Comfortable (or close to it), Oswald rocks back, sensation deep in his ass shifting then turning way _up_ , amplified tenfold, and Oswald scarcely has the time to get his bearings in this new heated flare before Ed is pulling out, just halfway, then thrusting back in, widening the range of motion the next thrust, then the next, the pressure of impact and the alternating feel of being suddenly too empty and then suddenly too full making Oswald sob, lifting his hips up further and then Ed’s next thrust hits that spot again, shockwaves of throbbing fire rocketing from Oswald’s screaming insides up to the tips of his fingers, and Ed just keeps pumping faster, going deeper, pummeling into that achy-hungry spot within Oswald again-again-again until it’s all too much, his thigh muscles, balls, ass all coiling tight, Ed’s name a desperate scream as he comes, involuntary spasms shaking him, body tensing then voiding out into limbless bliss as all that pressure _pops_ at last.

He sags down against the pillow, Ed still fucking into him, and now that he’s finished, tremors running through him, he can zone in on the noises Ed is making, low growls, skin of his hips slapping against Oswald’s ass, fragments of sentences like “ _so tight_ \--” and “ _Oswald fuck_ \--” spilling out his mouth.

Oswald is unbearably sensitive, stinging for what feels like _miles_ inside, but still down he clenches, holding himself open, letting Ed take what he needs, sink in as far as he wants, a litany of _yes_ es and _Ed_ s filling the air between them until Ed’s moans get hoarser, his thrusts unsteady and arrhythmic, fingernails digging into Oswald’s hips as he comes with a labored gasp, collapsing down onto Oswald’s back.

They lie like that for a bit, bodies rising and falling with their intakes of breath, until they’re both relatively composed and Ed rolls off of him with a giggly grunt.

Oswald shifts to his side to face him. Ed looks _wrecked_ , sweat-sodden and blotchy, and Oswald can only imagine what _he_ must look like. Laughing, he brings a hand to Ed’s cheek.

Ed closes his eyes at the touch, nuzzling into Oswald’s palm. He opens his eyes after a few moments, letting them drop to meet Oswald’s torso.

“Do you think we’d have ended up here sooner if I hadn’t done _this_ to you?” Ed asks, finger worrying at that blasted scar again.

“I don’t know,” Oswald admits, heart full, but heavy. “I don’t know if you ever could have forgiven me if you hadn’t done it.”

“Hmm,” Ed says, dropping his hand and looking back up into Oswald’s misty eyes. “Sorry. That was an inappropriate time to ask that question.”

“No,” Oswald replies, shaking his head. “It’s alright. This is part of me now. It’s part of us.”

Ed smiles, tears forming in his eyes. He leans in and kisses Oswald, gentle and salty.

“Are you as hungry as I am?” Oswald breaks the kiss to ask. “Not to ruin the moment or anything.”

“I could eat. I’m sure there’s a restaurant I could terrorize into securing a table for us without a reservation.”

“Terrorizing hardly seems necessary. I am the King of Gotham, after all.”

Oswald reaches over to pick up the phone perched on his nightstand, and Ed laughs wide and bright.

***

Oswald is sitting at his office desk, rubbing his temples. The night has been a long one and it’s not even 11 PM yet.

His staff has unionized against him, demanding (significantly) higher pay and more benefits after The Bat struck for a second time last night, leaving a quarter of his men incapacitated or in the hospital (snipers included).

The Bat’s break-in attempt was ultimately unsuccessful (Oswald has Zsasz and The Electrocutioner to thank for _that_ , and not a single other useless soul), but he’d effectively spooked Oswald’s entire security team.

Truth be told, Oswald wasn’t feeling exactly unruffled, himself.

Oswald is seriously weighing the pros and cons of simply shutting down for a few days while he replaces his petulant, entitled workers from the damn ground up when his door bursts open.

Oswald looks up, startled and fearing the worst, and sags in full-body relief when he realizes it’s only Ed.

“Oh, Ed, thank goodness. I am having a positively _rotten_ day.”

“Bat got you down still?”

“Now more than ever,” Oswald nods. He takes sudden note of Ed’s ensemble, something about it familiar but _off_. “You’re rocking the Riddler green again. Haven’t seen that in a little while.”

“Yes, about that,” Ed grins, sauntering over and hopping up onto Oswald’s desk. “You’re in luck, because I? Have had a _great_ day.”

“Do tell.”

“I think I’ve finally got it,” Ed exclaims, practically bouncing off the desktop in his manic excitement. “The perfect puzzle to rid us of our Bat problem once and for all.”

Oswald raises an eyebrow, skeptical but curious.

“You have a fairly significant role to play in it, though, I must confess, I’m something of the starring role,” Ed raises a hand to his chest, mock-humble.

It tickles Oswald to see him back in full bounce, performative and oozing cocky confidence.

“So,” Ed says, demanding Oswald focus on the matter at hand. “Do you want to hear my plan?”

“My dear Ed, I would love nothing more.”

Ed takes his hand in his, squeezing happily, and Oswald realizes with a rush of glee that this is the safest he has ever felt, Bat and all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lana Del Rey's "Love," because I'm cheesy and have been listening to it on loop while writing this.


End file.
